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Reporting problems today?


mrmaxx

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There have been three times in the last 8 hours where the blue line (reports sent) bottoms out and tracks the spam submitted (green histogram) where I have had trouble reporting spam. Otherwise its back to normal except I have unusually little spam to report - just a few 419's

I haven't been able to report in the last few hours despite what the statistic shows, it may be that there is a new code that prevents us from reporting at high frequency...

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One constant rule of computer-related issues is that a problem that takes 1000 hours for one person to solve does not necessarily take only an hour for 1000 people to solve.

This is profound!

To all those who have copied and replied to bits of what I last posted (few pages back)

Listen!

I stand by my comment. People in here have been rather snarky. This site provides a wonderful service and has for years now. And even us free users such as me, who take time out of every single day to copy and paste, wait for spamcop to process then send reports, one spam at a time are spending time to help solve a problem. I have been doing this for years now. And I promote spamcop on my own site and in many forums.

Am I upset that it's been down for so long? Sure. It kills me to just delete spam without even letting the sending ISPs know what is going on.

I don't get to see what happens after I hit submit. Once in a blue moon I might get a reply from some admin saying the spammer has been dealt with. YEA. But I rarely even see that much. And still I am willing to kill a few hours a day doing this. So yea, suddenly having to just eat spam was mildly upsetting.

But... Jump ship? get mad in here and say things like "just forget it?" Oh hell no.

What I gathered from reading all this is two things.

1. Spamcop has been under some form of attack.

2. They know about it, are going crazy trying to fix it (I do believe that.) And... as of this posting, it's working again. YEA! I just sent off a dozen spam messages with no problem.

For some good (and should be obvious) reasons, they simply can't give out too many details to the masses as to what happened and what was fixed. It's just like during war, the news will never know all the details about what is going on. For fear of letting the enemy know too! All I needed to know, and the reason I signed up and got on these boards, was to see that they are in fact aware, and are in fact working on it.

They are, have been, and now (for now) it's working again.

What everyone needs to say, rather than list all the many grievances, is say thank you.

(Ok, paying members might have more of a right to bitch.) But as a person who uses this site for free?

I'd just like to say thank you. I appreciate this site sticking it out and fixing the problem.

Reporting spam does work. I have many email addys and one in particular is "out there." I use it specifically on sites that I know full well harvest and leak out my info. (All bogus so they can have it.)

And even this email, that has got to be on every spam list there is, only got a dozen spam messages this morning. When I first signed up on spamcop? I was getting 900 a DAY! So yea. This site provides us all with a huge service. So it broke for a few weeks. And for a few weeks the spammers probably did a little happy dance.

Spamcop is baaaaack! and is MOST appreciated.

JMHO

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<snip>

My average reporting time of 3 hours since I began utilizing SC a year ago will become a much longer time if things continue this way. I was able to finally report 3 spam just now that had been waiting for 11 hours due to repeated timeouts.

<snip>

...Patient: "Doctor, it hurts when I smash my hand with a hammer. What do you recommend to relieve the pain?" Doctor: "I would recommend that you stop hitting your hand with the hammer." :) <g>
I still hope this difficulty will be gone. Otherwise SC will end up having only a few very dedicated afficionados with lots of free time on their hands reporting spam. The rest of us will be gone, and SC will lose it's reputation, and become a curiosity, hardly still utilized.
...Many of us will still be here after the problem is fixed to resume our reporting, I trust. :) <g> I hope you are among us but I will understand if you decide to not return.

<snip>

Am I upset that it's been down for so long? Sure. It kills me to just delete spam without even letting the sending ISPs know what is going on.

I don't get to see what happens after I hit submit. Once in a blue moon I might get a reply from some admin saying the spammer has been dealt with. YEA. But I rarely even see that much. And still I am willing to kill a few hours a day doing this. So yea, suddenly having to just eat spam was mildly upsetting.

But... Jump ship? get mad in here and say things like "just forget it?" Oh hell no.

<snip>

(Ok, paying members might have more of a right to bitch.) But as a person who uses this site for free?

I'd just like to say thank you. I appreciate this site sticking it out and fixing the problem.

<snip>

:wub: <LIKE> Thanks, Art!
Spamcop is baaaaack!

<snip>

...Well, we've heard and seen that, before, so I would counsel reserving judgment until a few hours have passed without any problem reports.
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This is profound!

To all those who have copied and replied to bits of what I last posted (few pages back)

Listen!

I stand by my comment. People in here have been rather snarky. This site provides a wonderful service and has for years now. And even us free users such as me, who take time out of every single day to copy and paste, wait for spamcop to process then send reports, one spam at a time are spending time to help solve a problem. I have been doing this for years now. And I promote spamcop on my own site and in many forums.

Am I upset that it's been down for so long? Sure. It kills me to just delete spam without even letting the sending ISPs know what is going on.

I don't get to see what happens after I hit submit. Once in a blue moon I might get a reply from some admin saying the spammer has been dealt with. YEA. But I rarely even see that much. And still I am willing to kill a few hours a day doing this. So yea, suddenly having to just eat spam was mildly upsetting.

But... Jump ship? get mad in here and say things like "just forget it?" Oh hell no.

What I gathered from reading all this is two things.

1. Spamcop has been under some form of attack.

2. They know about it, are going crazy trying to fix it (I do believe that.) And... as of this posting, it's working again. YEA! I just sent off a dozen spam messages with no problem.

For some good (and should be obvious) reasons, they simply can't give out too many details to the masses as to what happened and what was fixed. It's just like during war, the news will never know all the details about what is going on. For fear of letting the enemy know too! All I needed to know, and the reason I signed up and got on these boards, was to see that they are in fact aware, and are in fact working on it.

They are, have been, and now (for now) it's working again.

What everyone needs to say, rather than list all the many grievances, is say thank you.

(Ok, paying members might have more of a right to bitch.) But as a person who uses this site for free?

I'd just like to say thank you. I appreciate this site sticking it out and fixing the problem.

Reporting spam does work. I have many email addys and one in particular is "out there." I use it specifically on sites that I know full well harvest and leak out my info. (All bogus so they can have it.)

And even this email, that has got to be on every spam list there is, only got a dozen spam messages this morning. When I first signed up on spamcop? I was getting 900 a DAY! So yea. This site provides us all with a huge service. So it broke for a few weeks. And for a few weeks the spammers probably did a little happy dance.

Spamcop is baaaaack! and is MOST appreciated.

JMHO

Well said ;-)

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Here is my theory about what is happening. I admit that this is just a wild guess.

I believe the spammers have found a way to discover the reporting email addresses of all or most SpamCop users. This could have happened through some brute force attack or maybe a server that stores these addresses got hacked. Or maybe they found the algorithm that generates these email addresses. Or maybe the reports that are sent out allow the recipient to find the reporting address.

Now the attacker can send millions of random fake spam mails to these addresses through their botnet. The result is that the reporting server is brought to its knees and that user accounts (including mine) get disabled for reporting too much spam.

The problem is difficult to fix because even if the reporting addresses are changed the attacker might still use the same method to find them again.

If this theory is true the attacker could not only create a DOS condition but he could also falsely report innocent SMTP servers, which would lead to additional damage.

Again, this is just a wild guess and I don't have any evidence that my theory is correct.

I usually only report through the web interface and not through the reporting email address, so maybe I don't even understand this process completely.

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Here is my theory about what is happening. I admit that this is just a wild guess.

I believe the spammers have found a way to discover the reporting email addresses of all or most SpamCop users. This could have happened through some brute force attack or maybe a server that stores these addresses got hacked. Or maybe they found the algorithm that generates these email addresses. Or maybe the reports that are sent out allow the recipient to find the reporting address.

Now the attacker can send millions of random fake spam mails to these addresses through their botnet. The result is that the reporting server is brought to its knees and that user accounts (including mine) get disabled for reporting too much spam.

The problem is difficult to fix because even if the reporting addresses are changed the attacker might still use the same method to find them again.

If this theory is true the attacker could not only create a DOS condition but he could also falsely report innocent SMTP servers, which would lead to additional damage.

Again, this is just a wild guess and I don't have any evidence that my theory is correct.

I usually only report through the web interface and not through the reporting email address, so maybe I don't even understand this process completely.

They haven't even hinted that is a possibility. What they have said is that spammers signed up for accounts by the droves and started sending in thousands of spam reports trying to block the system that way. However, there is a 50,000 limit which restricted them somewhat.

I'm sure that Cisco/Spamcop are looking at ways of preventing this from happening in the future.

If what you suppose had happened then all of us would be experiencing a huge increase in spam, well that hasn't happened, here at least.

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Here is my theory about what is happening. I admit that this is just a wild guess.

<snip>

Hi, Rom,

...Very interesting! From my admittedly meager knowledge of how the SpamCop parser works, I would say that your theory is feasible. The one point on which I am most skeptical is your "spammers have found a way to discover the reporting email addresses of all or most SpamCop users." Again, while feasible, the addresses appear to me to be pretty immune from such action but that's just my feeling.

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Another update on the reporting page:

SpamCop Access and Performance Issues:

Cisco recognizes the performance issues many users of SpamCop.net have been experiencing, and would like to apologize

to the community for the service delays. Over the past week our researchers have been actively monitoring increased

global spam volumes caused by heightened botnet activity. Our investigations have revealed this as a global event not

specific to SpamCop. In the past, the service has successfully processed higher volumes of spam, but our team has

identified performance issues within our infrastructure. SpamCop remains an important part of our technology, and

Cisco is working diligently to restore SpamCop to its previous service levels.

Even as we continue the investigation, the spam and botnet data collected from SpamCop is improving Cisco’s

industry-leading anti-spam solution for our customers. To show appreciation to the SpamCop community, Cisco is

offering $15 worth of fuel to all registered users of the SpamCop spam reporting service. Registered users will

receive an email notification within 3-5 days with further instructions and details on the credit.

Cisco remains committed to the community and we acknowledge their contributions are integral in the continuing fight

against spam. We remain a committed partner to the cause.

Again, we apologize for the intermittent delays, and as our investigation continues, we will provide regular updates to

the SpamCop community.

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Thank you Cisco for the apologies and the promised $15 added to my fuel tank. And hereby my apologies for having entertained a not so loving thought about you. :blush:

In the mean time things worked nearly flawless for me again today: only 2 spam, and the first one was handled instantaneously. The second one was still taking a minute or so to have SC send the report confirmation email. But login was fast, and the reporting page and last page appeared instantly. B)

And thank you for the work on this. :D

................................................................................

To anyone who wants us to know how clever he is by suggesting how spammers could (have) cause(d) this problem: "Don't wake up sleeping dogs" as they say in my country.

Why give anyone ideas? :ph34r:

Good enough that you think you are clever. We don't give a flying hoot about that... but send your no doubt ingenious insights to us telepathically. ;)

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The statistics are down a slippery slope, but going down..the trend is obvious and so ios my ability to report...going down and down... This is not over till the fat lady sings..

Just got the dreaded

Gateway Timeout

The proxy server did not receive a timely response from the upstream server.

Reference #1.1e2ee402.1342120149.5dabccf

and then this

Parsing header:

got sigalarm, taking too long to process, aborted.

Perhaps you can wait a few minutes and reload?

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To acknowledge recent frustrations and show our appreciation to the community, Cisco will offer US$15 worth of fuel to all

currently registered users of the SpamCop spam reporting service. Registered users will receive an email notification within

3-5 days with further instructions and details on the credit.

We apologize again for the recent delays, and as our investigation continues, we will provide regular update

Got it! I was a free user

Still not able to login, any ideas?

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We apologize again for the recent delays, and as our investigation continues, we will provide regular updates to the SpamCop community.

Where is today's update?

Nothing has changed for 15 days now.

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Where is today's update?

<snip>

..."Regular" does not necessarily imply daily, especially if there's nothing new to report. :) <g>

...But I'll risk providing an update for today that I'd think should be acceptable to SpamCop:

I wish I had some hope to offer, but we haven't gotten to that point yet.

We're dealing with a huge problem. The engineers are on it, but the solution has eluded us so far.

Sorry for all the trouble!

...Oh, and then we also had "Pinned: Scheduled Outage" today.
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Sigh, back to the gateway time outs.

♫♬♩♪

spam spam spam spam

spam spam spam SPAMITY SPAAAMMMM

Spamity spam.

♫♬♩♪

"I don't like spam!!!"

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Don't mean to sound rude or anything, but can you guys tell me why I'm still disabled, after I payed 25 bucks, any ideas out there?

Lots of people are having the same issue. Me, for instance.

You should either reply to the email they probably sent you, or use this webform to contact them:

http://www.spamcop.net/w3m?action=contactf...count+Suspended

They'll tell you that their having major problems, and will reactivate you once they have things under control. But at least you'll know that someone knows about your issue.

The only other thing we can do is wait, and try to be patient.

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